Cafe Nevo

by Barbara Rogan

  “I’d like to speak with you privately,” she said.

  They moved to a table deep in the bowels of Nevo. Like an ant scenting a picnic, Muny sidled up; but Caspi tossed some stale coffee at him and the little man scurried away.

  “I thought it only fair to tell you,” Vered said. “We’re leaving today.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Caspi.

  “I didn’t want you to come back unexpectedly to an empty house.”

  “Darlin’, we’ve been through this. You know I won’t stand for it.”

  “There’s food in the fridge,” she said; “eat it or throw it out, don’t let it rot. I’m leaving you the car. There are some unpaid bills on the kitchen pegboard. I’ve taken half the money from our accounts.”

  “Forget it, baby. I won’t have it. I lost one family; that’s enough for a lifetime. I’d sooner—”

  “Caspi,” she said, “I’m pregnant.”

  His mouth fell open; he stared stupidly and began to breathe stertorously. Then two things happened simultaneously. Daniel recognized his father and, slipping his hand from Jemima’s, ran dodging through the café toward him. And a long white Peugeot with rental plates and tinted glass pulled up in front of Nevo.

  Caspi opened his arms. “Daniko! Come to Daddy!”

  “Daniel, no! Go back to Grandma,” called Vered.

  “I knew it, I knew it,” muttered Sternholz. He began hobbling purposefully toward the Caspis.

  The passenger door of the Peugeot opened, and a man stepped out. His face was wrapped in a keffiyeh. The man pulled back his arm and hurtled something. A silvery bird soared leisurely over the heads of Nevo’s inhabitants.

  Arik leaped onto Sarita, wrestled her to the pavement, and lay on top of her.

  The chess players scattered like sparrows.

  Ilana screamed, her hands flying down to her belly. She dove under the table. One arm snaked up, grabbed David’s, and pulled him down.

  Muny ran toward the Peugeot, brandishing a beer bottle. The car sped down Dizengoff.

  Caspi jumped up when he saw the silver bird flying toward him. He grabbed Vered’s arm with one hand, Daniel’s with the other, and with all his strength he hurled them aside. They crashed into the wall and fell heavily to the floor. Vered wrapped her body around Daniel’s.

  Sternholz froze.

  The silver bird landed at Caspi’s feet, sputtering and hissing. He picked it up, screaming, “Clear the back!” Caspi pivoted toward the open back door of Nevo, ten feet behind him. The way was clear. He swung his arm back to throw. The grenade exploded.

  The poet Rachel wrote that at the hour of his death each man stands upon Nevo. Emmanuel Yehoshua Sternholz thinks of this as he climbs the mountain. Though he never entered Moab in his life, he recognizes the rich shades of amber, gold, and sienna in the blue-veined rock. The air is as clear as crystals. It is not yet dawn, and dark at the foot of the mountain; but as he ascends, light gathers around him. The climb, though steep, is effortless. Sternholz cannot put a foot wrong; he clambers like an ibex, limbs bathed in agility.

  As he rises, the air thickens, growing viscous and golden. On the higher reaches of Nevo it is almost liquid, but Sternholz breathes the strange element with ease. The lightness of his body delights him; he lifts up his apron and does a little jig upon the mountainside.

  He is alone on the mountain but others have gone before: here and there along the wayside he sees discarded shoes, sloughed outer clothing, a worn teddy bear. The path snakes upward. He cannot see what lies ahead but pushes forward with all the yearning of his heart. Out of the perfect silence comes a child’s laugh. He knows that laugh, though half a century has passed since he heard it last. Sternholz hurries forward, upward.

  The light is intense, but rather than blinding, it clarifies. Sternholz has never seen so immediately; it is as if a filter has been lifted from the world. He rounds a bend and comes in view of the summit. Two figures stand on the mountain-top; they face him; they are waiting for him. A woman and a small boy. Sternholz starts to run.

  Another bend, and they are lost to sight; another; and they reappear, closer, more luminous. The woman sees him. She waves and lifts the child for him to see. The boy laughs and raises his arms aloft.

  Sternholz is on the last leg of the climb. He can almost touch them now. Greta is smiling with all her heart. Jacob reaches toward him.

  He cannot move.

  He presses forward against an invisible barrier. He stretches out an arm and encounters an impassable nothing.

  He begins to slip backward.

  “Greta,” he cries. “Jacob! God, no” he sobs. Though he struggles fiercely, the downward tug is irresistible.

  Greta’s face is suffused with sorrow now. She touches her heart. Her lips form a single word: “Soon.” She throws a kiss. Jacob is still, clinging to his mother.

  Sternholz is swept backward into a vortex. As he descends, his limbs grow heavy and his breath rattles inside his chest. Darkness and pain overtake him. The sweet liquid air of Mount Nevo is gone, and in its place comes something rank.

  “He’s back,” says a voice.

  A bristly mouth fastens itself to his, and a blast of fetid air fills his mouth. Sternholz gags and turns his head aside. He opens his eyes. Muny’s mottled face is inches away.

  “Oh, God “ cries Muny, “I thought we lost you.”

  Sternholz closes his eyes. A tear trickles down his cheek.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Dying changes a lot in a man’s life. Sternholz resurrected was a different man from what he had been, though the differences were subtle and not easily seen. Strangely enough, although he’d enjoyed his short death and resisted his revival, he was in no hurry to return to that state. It seemed to him that he had lived all his life in fear and a kind of retroactive foreboding and that now (miraculously, considering whose rancid breath had saved him) he had been afforded a chance to live out its final stage in a state of joyous anticipation and secret serenity.

  When he was dead, nothing mattered, but after his revival Sternholz was troubled by his lack of forethought. If Café Nevo died with him, what would become of his poor old derelict chess players? He could not bear the thought of them cast out into the cold, cruel worlds of Café Rowal and the Sabra, where they would be bilked for every lousy cup of coffee and plagued for tips by insolent young waiters.

  He was not foolish enough to believe that Nevo could endure forever, for in the Promised Land the only constants are change and disappointment. Nor did he consider Nevo a suitable candidate for permanence, even if such an unnatural state were presumed to exist. Nevo was by nature a way station, never a destination; but it was his duty to make Nevo as permanent a way station as could be contrived.

  And so to that end Sternholz, while still in the hospital, drew up his last will and testament. The stewardship of Café Nevo he assigned to Muny, who, though manifestly undeserving, was the only person he knew foolish enough to take it on. Since (he wrote) Muny would pilfer anyway, he was not to be paid a salary, but allowed to keep what he took, which would not exceed his needs; the rest would be paid into a fund for the preservation of Nevo, not as a landmark but as a living café. Mr. Jacobovitz was given tenure for life and a pension if and when he should retire, and Sternholz bequeathed the rest of his estate, including his apartment, to Sarita Blume, because she had no parents to take care of her, and he no child to care for.

  When the document was ready, Sternholz signed it, put it aside, and forgot about it. He had other matters to attend to. Through Muny he directed the repair of the café, which, though damaged by the blast, was yet structurally sound. The café remained open during the work, most of which was carried out by Nevo customers. Sternholz criticized his doctors and lectured them on proper medical procedures; he interviewed the police, under the pretext of being interviewed by them, and evinced an odd satisfaction in their failure to arrest a culprit; and he received visitors, resuming his interrupted direction of their live
s.

  One of the first and most frequent of these was Ilana Maimon.

  Ilana had been wounded by shrapnel, but only superficially: the cuts on her arms and face were shallow enough to require only cleaning. However, because of her pregnancy, she was hospitalized for several days’ observation.

  On the second day, a nurse carried in a large potted plant wrapped in foil. “A man brought this for you,” she said. “I told him he could come in, but he didn’t want to.”

  “What man?” Ilana asked.

  The nurse shrugged. “He wouldn’t give his name. An old guy, with an Iraqi accent.”

  Ilana took a couple of deep breaths. “What did he say?”

  “He just asked how you were and asked me to bring this in. A secret admirer maybe?”

  “Take the paper off, please.”

  Beneath the foil was a young pine tree. The nurse detached a card from the slender trunk and brought it to Ilana.

  “Care for this young one,” the card read. “Feed it, nurture it, and when it is strong enough, plant it with the others in the forest.” There was no signature.

  The next day Ilana was released. She sent a roomful of flowers to the children’s ward, but the pine sapling she took home.

  “Nu?” demanded Sternholz, when she appeared in his hospital room. He stared pointedly at her midriff.

  “It’s all right,” Ilana said. “No harm done.”

  “Thank God,” the old man sighed.

  “How do you feel, Emmanuel?”

  “How should I feel? A man gets killed, he doesn’t feel like dancing. And besides, I can still taste Muny’s breath. Feh!”

  “He saved your life, Emmanuel. While everyone was standing around screaming and crying, he dove right on top of you and started pumping.”

  “And broke my rib, the old fool. Where’s that Englishman of yours?”

  “David had to go back to London.”

  Sternholz sniffed.

  “He stayed until lie knew I was all right,” she said defensively.

  “And I thought he was a mensch.”

  “He is.”

  Sternholz curled his lip. “What line of business is he in?”

  She looked a little startled. “David’s an architect.”

  “So? We don’t build houses here?”

  “He’s rather a grand architect,” she said gently. “He heads his own firm. David specializes in converting old churches into gentlemen’s residences.”

  “Churches we got. Gentlemen...” He waggled a hand from side to side. “Fine work for a Jewish boy.”

  “He’s not much of a Jew, really.”

  “He’s not much of a man,” Sternholz sneered, “but he’s as much a Jew as anyone. What does it take? A Jewish mother.”

  At last Ilana took offense. “It’s none of your business, you rude old man, but I’ll tell you anyway. David asked me to come with him. He wants to marry me.”

  Sternholz nodded thoughtfully. After a moment he said, “And you refused.”

  “Yes.” She shut her lips firmly.

  “You prefer to raise the child on your own?”

  “I prefer to live here. I don’t know why I tell you these things. Besides, I’m not all alone. I have family,” she said. Such a simple word, yet it tasted like champagne. “And a friend.”

  “Vered Caspi?”

  Ilana nodded.

  “She’s in a delicate condition.” He gave her a sharp look. “Isn’t she?”

  “Ask her.”

  “Where is she? I have something to say to her,” he said fretfully, sounding, for once, like the old man he was. “Tell her to come.”

  “I will when I see her.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “She wasn’t hurt,” Ilana said carefully. She had assumed that Sternholz knew what had happened that day. If he didn’t, she wasn’t about to tell him.

  But Sternholz asked no more questions. A few moments later he closed his eyes and instantly sank into sleep. One thing dying had done for him was to cure his insomnia.

  Ilana did pass on the summons, but Vered stayed away from the hospital. Sternholz sent additional messages, through Muny and anyone else whose services he could commandeer, but these, too, were ignored.

  A week after Sternholz was sent home with strict orders to stay in bed, he was sitting in his armchair at the window overlooking the sea when he heard high-heeled shoes coming up the wooden stairs. There was a brisk knock, the door to his apartment opened, and Vered Caspi stepped over the threshold, stopping just inside the room.

  “Go ahead and say it,” she demanded, arms akimbo.

  “Say what?”

  “ ‘I told you so.’ ‘It’s all your fault.’ Whatever this message is you’ve got for me. Go on, get it out of your system.”

  Sternholz drew his bathrobe shut. Without his apron he seemed half his former size, a fallen angel. He said, “Sit with me, maidele.”

  She leaned against the door. “Just get it over with, will you?”

  “Come in and shut that door,” he growled, and, with a sigh she closed the door and sat opposite him on a folding chair from the café.

  Sternholz studied her in silence. She had always been what people called “fashionably thin,” and Sternholz called “skinny”; but now she was as gaunt as a starving street urchin. There were dark smudges under her eyes. She wore no make-up, and her hands moved restlessly.

  “You look like hell,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Is the baby alive?”

  “Alive and kicking,” she said after a pause. No point denying it any longer. She had just come from Rafi Steadman’s office. He had taken one look at her and offered her an abortion, which she refused, having carried the child long enough to feel a fierce protectiveness toward it. What had happened was not the baby’s fault, and she was damned if she would add it to the roster of victims.

  Sternholz nodded. “How’s Daniel?”

  “Okay,” she said. “He cracked his collarbone, but it’s already healed. He’s fine.”

  “So is Caspi.”

  Vered looked shaken. “What are you talking about? Don’t you know?”

  “More than you think. I’ve been there.”

  She’d heard of people turning gray overnight, but not senile. Perhaps it was the shock. Gently she said, “Sternholz, Caspi died.”

  “I know that,” he replied peevishly. “So did I.”

  “No, I mean really died. Permanently. We buried him.”

  “Caspi is happy,” said the old man.

  “Oh, Sternholz.”

  “Don’t ‘Oh, Sternholz’ me, maidele. I know what I know and I know where I’ve been. Caspi is with people who love him. He’s with his family. You can take that or leave it, but if you’ve got a drop of good sense, you’ll take it.”

  Vered laughed fearfully. “Sternholz, have you gotten religion in your old age?”

  Astonishingly, the old man blushed. “Not the kind you mean. But something happened when I died.”

  “You keep saying that. But you didn’t die. You just stopped breathing for a moment, that’s all.”

  “My heart stopped, too. I was dead. And I came back.”

  “Full of revelations,” she mocked.

  “Just a few,” he said calmly.

  “All right. Tell me what happened.”

  “I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about you.”

  “What’s there to talk about? I was Caspi’s wife; now I’m his widow. Maybe you’re right about him being happy,” she said bitterly. “He got what he wanted.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Me. Forever and ever.” Her mouth twisted. She covered it with both hands. Sternholz tried to stand but the old ticker gave a warning pang. He sank back, breathless.

  “Verdele,” he said when he could, “listen to me. Peter Caspi died in the best way he could, saving his wife and child. With all my heart I envy him his death. It was the making of him.”

&nb
sp; “His death was the making of him? You’re mad, Sternholz.” She started to laugh, then hiccuped, sobbed, and laughed again. “He always said I would leave over his dead body. He was right.”

  Sternholz scowled. “You’re not going to get hysterical on me, are you?” and he gave her a look that cowed her into calmness. “Caspi died a liberating death. His last act was to thrust you away. He freed you; you mustn’t refuse that gift.”

  “And I thought you of all people would dare speak the truth to my face.”

  “What is the truth?”

  “That I am responsible. I got Caspi killed.” She spoke with great tragic consciousness. Unforgivably, Sternholz sniggered.

  “That’s funny?” she said incredulously.

  “It’s silly. You’re taking credit where none is due.”

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  “If the grenade was meant specifically for him, which is far from certain, by the way, don’t you think maybe Caspi brought it on himself?”

  A gleam of hope showed in her eye, fading quickly. “You know what my last words to him were? ‘Caspi, I’m pregnant.’ Of course, he knew it wasn’t his.” She crossed her arms and leaned back triumphantly.

  “You said the words; then came the explosion. B follows A; therefore, A caused B. Very logical thinking. I’m glad to see that all your education hasn’t gone to waste.”

  Vered found herself laughing. “You old fool. You know what I mean.”

  “I know you’re a mixed-up child who ought to listen to her elders and betters. I’m sure Jemima’s saying what I say. If Caspi was murdered, you didn’t do it. Khalil Mussara did, with a big assist from the victim.”

  “No, no, no.”

  “Ah, you don’t like that.” He bared his teeth. “Caspi and the Arab were like two dogs, fighting over a bush to pee on. Is it the bush’s fault if they tear each other to shreds?”

  “How dare you make such a comparison!”

  “Why? Is it harder to admit that you were used than to take all the blame on yourself?”

  Sternholz was so adept at being cruel to be kind that sometimes even he doubted his good intentions.

  Vered moaned, “Leave me alone, old man,” but she remained seated, head bowed.